


Drabbles of a Hero's Complex

by Tayine



Category: G.I. Joe: Renegades
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tayine/pseuds/Tayine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short one-shots written within the canon, usually about S/SE but featuring other Joes as well. I really like moments where people risk their lives for others, so expect a lot of those scenes in here- there are many within this awesome series. (I will use these as warm-ups, so expect updates sporadically.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire Fight: Freefall

He drops the kid and jumps without hesitation or fear because what would any of that get him besides a dead _shinyuu_ and three angry soldiers on his heels? His hands go back to the cache of weapons he keeps on his person, closing around his sheathed nunchacku and a heavy-duty rope that uncoils with one tug. They join together as his feet leave the gondola. The kid falls somewhere out of his peripheral vision but he manages to stay on the gondola somehow because he doesn’t hear him scream, too bad, another time. 

He falls faster than she does because they both know what they’re doing, she’s spreading her arms and legs to get as much drag as she can while he arcs through the air like a bullet, but it still takes so much time to get to her that he can’t breathe for a moment. When he finally gets his arm around her waist he smells a burst of her hair, a perfume from cheap Herbal Essences shampoo that they buy in those small travel-sized bottles. They all smell like that because they share, but she wears it better than the rest. Her eyes open for an instant and then close again, her mouth snarling in fear, but her arms respond to his touch and she closes them around him, curling close and warm in his grip.

He swings the nunchaku with practiced flicks of his wrist, feeling the spikes on the ends open up from the force but that’s inconsequential because he already sees the rock that’s going to be his target as they fall through the gorge of the dammed-up river. When he throws the weapon he knows immediately his aim was true. The rope coils around the jutting rock and holds as the slack on the rope tightens and tugs, so that the two of them swing in a pendulum towards the cliff face. Her arms are around his neck and hanging tight. She is heavy underneath his arm. He knows no one else would be as heavy, Duke wouldn’t weigh this much, not even Roadblock, Roadblock would be a cinch to carry like this compared to her.

They swing closer and closer towards the rocks, seeming to speed up. He angles his body up, letting her droop so there’s space between them in case he can’t stop them and they smash against the rocks, his body before hers. His feet go out. In a force of sudden motion arrest they stop moving for the first time in ages, his boots flush with the rocks, letting them take most of the shock recoil, his knees bending so they and his thighs take the rest. They breathe together, shivering from the adrenaline. There’s no time to rest, however: they still have the mission to complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fire Fight" is the first episode of Renegades that I ever watched, and this scene was the one that captured me, hook line and sinker. I had never seen anything GI Joe related before this, so I credit Scarlett and Snake Eyes thoroughly for their contribution. Plus I really like falling scenes.


	2. The Descent: Casualty of War

The line across his neck still stung from the monster ripping away his dog tags. He didn't have time to acknowledge the pain, really, but it proved a distraction in a time when he really didn't need one. The cable that had served as the juice for his bomb had been torn away by the marauding freaks of goo, so he'd had to turn away from making it to the exit with the others. He gave a flying leap towards one of the haphazard cables hanging from the ceiling, more at home in the air than anywhere else, and swung down back towards the lower level, needing time and finding little. The cable was sparking and heavy in his hands, but this was his idea and he always followed through. It could be the difference between life and death for the others. He could hear the monsters behind him but the electricity needed a ground, some way to bring the boom into the final showdown. There was a floodgate wheel sticking out from one of the various machines- perfect.

He was just about done coiling it around the metal, just about to get away, and he could hear the freaks behind him, hissing and snarling and dripping their gooey saliva from their thin tongues and insectoid mouths. With the fast, quick motions that had been his signature in boot camp, his go-to means of survival in the field, he jumped and flipped away, back to the stairs. He knew the others were waiting for him at the top of the stairs; just a few bounds up and he would be with them and they could get away from the impending blast.

Then the paw, or hand, or whatever it was, closed around his middle and yanked him back. He grunted and flailed, fighting their supernatural strength with his own human resolve, and came to the conclusion with the instantaneous finality of a dead man walking that this was it. He looked over his shoulder, fighting to the very end as any good solider would, and saw the current moving its way down the wire to his dirty bomb. There was a moment of calm, then fear, then rage, then calm again, and he thought, _I need a line._

“Might wanna cover your ears, dough boy,” he crowed at the last second, hoping simultaneously that the others had heard and that they weren’t there to. The first blast caught him hard and stole his breath away; it’s hot, so hot, and the shockwaves were concussive, and as any soldier knew, it was the shockwaves that did the damage, and he braced for the next one, and his last thought before eternity was of his dog tags, hoping that they weren’t still in the grubby paws of the monster that had stolen them because he needed to be buried with them.


	3. Busted: Sideshow Act

“Alright, we have to make this look good. Don’t hold back.”

He lifted his teammate by his shirt with two hands, easily, like he was a sack of flour, and tossed him across the small pen. Duke landed on the ground and didn’t get up, his arms splayed out with palms up. Roadblock took a running leap, wanting to make it look good for the cameras but not actually kill his sergeant. He twisted his body in the air, looking down to aim, and came down on top of Duke with the fleshy part of his rear end. He felt the muscled, hard body beneath deflate, and he wondered if maybe he hadn’t gone easy enough. It was hard living in a world made for much smaller people, but he thought he’d mostly gotten used to it by now. Then something would happen that reminded him he was just a very big man, with a very big strength, and he had to remind himself to rein it in.

“Okay. Hold back a little.”

Roadblock grinned a tiny smile to himself and got to his feet. Duke continued to lie on the ground. He definitely looked a little squashed.

“Get up, man,” whispered the corporal. He eyed the bloodthirsty pack of prison guards beyond the perimeter of the pen who howled and snapped their jaws at them, knowing that whatever they managed to do to each other, what those beasts had in mind was infinitely worse. He reached down to help Duke to his feet and felt the instant disapproval hissing from the audience.

“Duke,” he implored.

The sergeant struggled and stood, holding his chest with one flat palm. He’d gotten the wind knocked out of him.

“Hey man, no hard feelings after this, right?” Roadblock said, lifting his huge fists slow enough and telegraphing the punches with his body so that Duke had time to read and respond, his fighting training coming to him in a rush. Even with Duke’s size and speed, sometimes a blow would get through to his cheek, making him stumble, and Roadblock would flinch and apologize under his breath.

“We’ll see, corporal,” he grunted, blocking a punch with his forearms. “I’m beginning to think you’re liking this a bit too much.”

Roadblock had to cough to cover a laugh and dodged a punch from Duke quickly, light on his feet and thunderous in his strength. Yeah, maybe a bit.


	4. Return of the Arashikage: Leapfrog

Rain trickled down his neck in rivulets, cold and uncomfortable against his hot skin as he crouched and leapt down and out. Beneath his belly, the waterfall roared and crashed in white-water rage, certain to dash the ninja to pieces if he didn’t get to him in time. The chain snapped and coiled behind, and he outstretched his arms in response, reaching, reaching. The water was cold and made everything slippery, but he trusted his teammates and the jutting rock above to hold them.

The ninja was stuck to the falling boulder like a treefrog, but he reached out too, in the same motion he’d made towards his fellows at the top of the cascading waterfall. The soldier connected with him, hard, knocking them both sideways and over as they fell into the vertical water. He wrapped his muscled arms around the ninja’s torso, closing his eyes to the freezing water as it filled his eyes and mouth. He braced for the sudden jerk around his middle that would take them to relative safety as they hung above the raging waters, feeling the ninja’s hard body go limp.

The chain caught and held tight, pulling the two of them backwards now, out of the water that had blinded him. He held his breath against the shocking force of hitting the cliff face with his back and then breathed easy for the first time in ages. The ninja hung in his arms, pressed tight to his chest.

“Never leave a Joe behind,” he grinned to the masked man, seeing with a sudden jolt the tear in his mask up close that revealed a very human-looking mouth.

The ninja nodded, his human mouth turning into a slight but very human smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told ya I like falling scenes.


	5. Brothers of Light: Blowing Stuff Up is Our Specialty

The mantra “Rats are great climbers, rats are great climbers” repeats in his head as he scales the statue. Below, the chaos of the fight rages and roils like white water, making him sick with the worry of what if it doesn’t work, what if Duke and Scarlett and Roadblock are stuck as brainwashed lackeys forever, what if he has to continue the war against Cobra with _just Snake Eyes oh god I’d go crazy working with that mute ninja for the rest of my life Scarlett’s the brains and Duke’s the brawn, I’m just the charming comic relief_.

When he gets to the peak of the ugly-ass statue he pulls the trident from its place strapped to his back and twirls it with a flourish. “Lights out,” he snarls, the stress relief from that one deadpan snark doing more for his state of exhaustion than the entire night’s sleep he’d gotten on the mattress in the Crazy Twins’ home-away-from-home prison room. He stabs the crystal with its painfully blinding light and waits for wails of embarrassment to come from below as his teammates realize all along that they should have just listened to poor ol’ Tunnel Rat.

Instead, the whole goddamn thing explodes, sending him momentarily into the dizzying abyss of a freefall. His reflexes save him – he catches himself on a rough surface of the statue and holds there, his upper arm strength from years of digging and climbing slippery sewer walls his saving grace. He is safe, and he prepares to slide down and check on his friends. Then the thing begins to fall.

He can’t help himself; he cries out as the statue takes him down with it. Then there is the satisfying crunch of the stone crumbling beneath its own weight, and he has to appreciate that the twins were too stingy to splurge for a carving material that’s a little more hardy. He tucks and rolls, landing back on solid ground none the worse for wear – except for the fact that nothing seems to have changed, and Roadblock goes for him in a charging bull way that actually scares him a little. He dodges the clumsy attack and prepares for phase two. He’s not done yet – he’s just getting started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to both Rebd and Tunnel Rat, without whom there would be no light in the world.


	6. Shipwrecked: Davy Jones

The electric shock coming from the steering wheel is unexpected and unwelcome. He grimaces and steels himself for a second one as he grabs at it and shifts it into reverse. He hadn’t entered the Coyote with a plan, but he had one now, and it was the only thing he could think about. Drown the beast, save his team. No matter the cost. He remembers what he’d just said to Shipwreck: “I love my truck, but I ain’t gonna sacrifice my friends for it.” Well, there is one thing he’d sacrifice to save these crazy, rebellious, amazing people with whom he has lived these stressful, unbelievable few months.

He takes one final breath and stomps his heavy boot on the gas, making the tires squeal on the slippery deck of the ship. He can hear the weird Cobra monster outside, shrieking and flailing its tentacles as it takes over the electrical weapons system in the truck. It’s brilliant, and devious, and definitely Cobra style, which is why he now has no choice but to destroy it in any way he can. This is the most dangerous Viper they’ve come across yet, which almost makes him glad he won’t be around to see what else the mad scientists can cook up. Almost. He has a moment of regret that he didn’t have better last words.

The heavy pressure of gravity on the truck lets up as it hits the choppy ocean surface. Immediately, the monster lets go of its hold on the electrical systems. Now he can hear it panicking outside as the Coyote bobs for a brief, scary moment and then begins to sink. He struggles with the door handle, hoping against hope that he still has time to escape. The bravery of his final action of a Joe is still there, but it’s almost bitter now, as the frigid seawater begins to bubble into the compartment. “At least we’re going down together,” he says to the truck, caressing its steering wheel in a comforting way. He’s spent some good times here. It hasn’t been all bad.

When he realizes what that rushing feeling is as the truck switches directions in its descent down into the murky depths, he has a moment of elation so strong that he feels dizzy. He doesn’t regret his actions, but he’s glad he’s alive to fight another day beside his friends.


End file.
